[Heb. algām, a foreign word; see quot.] A tree mentioned in the Bible (2 Chron. ii. 8), also called erroneously (1 Kings x. 11) ALMUG, said to have been brought from Ophir; variously surmised to be a species of acacia, cedar, or cypress, but probably a kind of sandalwood.
1578. Bible (Genev.), 2 Chron. ii. 8. Send mee also cedar trees, firre trees, and Algummim trees. Ibid. (1611). Algume trees.
1721. Bailey, Algum or Almug.
1866. Max Müller, Sc. Lang., I. 225. The algum-tree … is supposed to be the sandal-wood-tree…. One of the numerous names for this tree in Sanscrit is valguka. This valguka, which points back to a more original form valgu, might easily have been corrupted by Phenician and Jewish sailors into algum, a form, as we know, still further corrupted, at least in one passage of the Old Testament, to almug. Sandal-wood is found indigenous in India only, and there chiefly on the coast of Malabar.
